{"id":11670,"date":"2014-01-28T14:28:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T19:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/?p=11670"},"modified":"2015-03-06T16:38:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T21:38:35","slug":"epic-ribbon-cutting-welcomes-industry-local-officials-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/2014\/01\/28\/epic-ribbon-cutting-welcomes-industry-local-officials-2\/","title":{"rendered":"EPIC Ribbon-Cutting Welcomes Industry, Local Officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Features tour of ENG\u2019s new design, manufacturing studio<\/strong><\/p>\n

01.21.2014 By\u00a0Leslie Friday<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) will train BU engineers \u201cfor the future manufacturing economy in this country,\u201d says EPIC director Gerry Fine. Photos by Mike Spencer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) hadn\u2019t yet opened for its inaugural semester, and it already had a wait list of students eager to register for classes in the sleek, glass-fronted Commonwealth Avenue building that not too long ago was the Guitar Center. That bodes well for the College of Engineering and the University officials and corporate sponsors who made the new facility possible.<\/p>\n

ENG will host EPIC\u2019s ribbon-cutting ceremony this Thursday, January 23. Among those present will be President Robert A. Brown, ENG Dean Kenneth Lutchen, local dignitaries, and key corporate partners, including representatives from principal industry sponsors GE Aviation, Procter & Gamble, PTC, and Schlumberger.<\/p>\n

Lutchen, who is also an ENG professor of biomedical engineering, says that EPIC\u2019s opening \u201cnow begins the opportunity for us to transform our engineering education at the undergraduate level to really create a much more powerfully enabled graduate who understands the process of designing products from conception to deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those skills are particularly important, and valuable, now that manufacturing is making a comeback in the United States. US manufacturers have added at least 500,000 new workers since the end of 2009, energy costs have dropped, and labor costs in competing countries such as China and India have been inching upward.<\/p>\n

Companies like Apple and GE are bringing high-tech facilities back home from overseas. While a positive development, \u201cthe problem is now there aren\u2019t enough engineers trained in highly technological methods,\u201d says Bruce Jordan, ENG assistant dean of development and alumni relations.<\/p>\n

EPIC could help fill that void. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to set a standard for the training of engineers for the future manufacturing economy in this country,\u201d says EPIC director Gerry Fine, an ENG professor of the practice.<\/p>\n

Funded through the University, ENG alumni and friends, and regional industry, EPIC\u2019s 15,000-square-foot space houses a computer-aided design (CAD) studio, demonstration areas, fabrication facilities, materials testing, and project management software available to engineering students in all specialties\u2014from computer and electrical engineering to biomedical engineering and nanotechnology. The facility has a flexible design and offers students supply chain management software, 3-D printers, robotics, laser processing, and around-the-clock digital access to the studio\u2019s online resources.<\/p>\n

A representative from each principal industry sponsor, GE Aviation, Procter & Gamble, PTC, and Schlumberger, will sit on EPIC\u2019s Industrial Advisory Board, whose primary function will be to offer suggestions on how the ENG undergraduate curriculum might be redesigned to better prepare students for employment in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

\"Timothy<\/a>
Timothy Jackman (ENG\u201915) with one of EPIC\u2019s 3-D printers, which he used to create a miniature car from a digital model.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe want to create as many options for our graduating students as possible,\u201d Fine says. \u201cBy teaching them some of the things that regional industry wants, we think we\u2019re giving our students more options. And we\u2019re making our students more desirable to potential employers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives from the principal sponsors will also participate in guest lectures and provide case studies and projects, and the companies will offer internship and employment opportunities to qualified students.<\/p>\n

While other universities have manufacturing-oriented centers, most focus on basic research, but EPIC allows engineering students to put theory into practice by converting their ideas into products that could one day benefit society.<\/p>\n

Fine has given tours of the facility to at least five teams from other universities since June. \u201cWe\u2019re not aware of anyone who\u2019s invested in this scale and made this commitment to undergraduate education,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first heard from Dean Lutchen about the idea of EPIC, I was thrilled,\u201d says Michael Campbell (ENG\u201994), executive vice president of PTC\u2019s CAD segment, who will serve on EPIC\u2019s advisory board. \u201cI always felt that my engineering education lacked that real-world perspective, that real-world exposure to the challenges, processes, and complexities of collaboration and the sophistication of tools. Now we have a chance to share all of that with students.\u201d<\/p>\n

J. David Rowatt, research director and technical advisor at Schlumberger, echoes that sentiment. \u201cThere were so many things I didn\u2019t learn in school that I picked up on the job,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of these are clearly being addressed by what EPIC is trying to do,\u201d which is exposing students to the entire engineering process\u2014from conception and manufacturing to working on deadlines and understanding resource constraints.<\/p>\n

Greg Morris, strategy and business development leader for additive manufacturing with GE Aviation, says this generation of students grew up in a world where computers and software were second nature, but tinkering under the hood of a car was not. EPIC will provide engineering students with the hands-on experience that gives them an advantage in the marketplace. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how much that resonates with an employer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Both BU and its partners see EPIC as a win-win. ENG faculty and students will benefit from a revamped curriculum and access to global leaders in innovation and manufacturing, while industry partners will interact with the University\u2019s deep bench of cutting-edge researchers and get exposure to a new crop of engineers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we tap into EPIC,\u201d says Bruno De Weer, the vice president of global engineering at Procter & Gamble, \u201cwe can find ourselves connected with another hub of innovation that brings the very best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The EPIC ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 23, at 750 Commonwealth Ave., followed by a reception and tours for those invited. The event is not open to the public.<\/p>\n

Leslie Friday can be reached at lfriday@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @lesliefriday.<\/em>
\n This story originally appeared in BU Today<\/a> on 1\/21\/2014.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Features tour of ENG\u2019s new design, manufacturing studio 01.21.2014 By\u00a0Leslie Friday The Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) hadn\u2019t yet opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6976,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6976"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11670"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12590,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11670\/revisions\/12590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cpo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}